


To conquer ourselves from within

by siderokardias



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: (both mentioned) - Freeform, 50 Sentences, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Forced Prostitution, I promise, Implied Sexual Content, Let's Go Lesbians, Past Torture, Recovery, also, it is better than what it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22055557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siderokardias/pseuds/siderokardias
Summary: 50 prompts/sentences challengeIt’s not difficult at all to recognize Victors – their hands are always ready to strike, their teeth too sharp, their eyes too old and their blood cold as hell.or; the unlikely road to something that quite resembles recovery.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen &Haymitch Abernathy & Johanna Mason, Katniss Everdeen/Johanna Mason
Comments: 19
Kudos: 82





	To conquer ourselves from within

**Author's Note:**

> *arrives about a decade late with a Starbucks*  
> People still do this challenge, right? I preemtively apologize for my butchering of English grammar and the proliferation of commas here. The sentences aren't ordered following the timeline.
> 
> (Fun fact: I bamboozled myself into shipping this. Katniss/Johanna is my new OTP and I won't accept constructive criticism on that ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)
> 
> btw the canon here is basically what I remembered from the books so... yeah, there's that.

_I think the most courageous thing to do today_

_is to conquer ourselves from within_

_—not blaming others. —_

Anais Nïn, from The Diaries of Anais Nïn, Vol. 7: 1966-1974

#01 - Air

The first thing Johanna does when they arrive at District 12 is take a deep breath – coal and trees smell different when they burn.

#02 - Apples

Johanna still eats like a wolf despite the many years of having to live in the Capitol; apple juice trickles down her chin and Katniss is strangely compelled to wipe it off with her mouth.

#03 - Beginning

Johanna takes up carving wood – furiously, as if she was carving something else entirely – and eventually manages to produce ridiculously elaborate knotwork medallions she gifts Katniss with once a week.

#04 - Bugs

Katniss has the habit of sweeping their room for bugs – Johanna tells her they should just be _very_ vocal in bed and wait for Plutarch to complain and remove them himself.

#05 - Coffee

Katniss’ hands shake around her fifth mug of coffee – Peeta had called again forty hours ago and the nightmares had kicked in again like clockwork – as Johanna coaxes her fingers loose, promising she’ll stay with her throughout the night no matter how ugly it gets.

#06 - Dark

They get used to keeping a light on at all times so they can quickly scan their surroundings when they wake up; isn’t it unfair, that they won the war and it should still linger inside them?

#07 - Despair

When the shrinks tell her Peeta isn’t fit for leaving the psych ward in the Capitol’s hospital – won’t be, in fact, for a long time – Katniss _feels_ something tearing inside _how dare they take him from me how dare they is this their leverage against me_ _hasn’t anything really changed_ _?_

#08 - Doors

Kat holds the door open for Johanna to enter her house in the Victor’s Village – neither of them want to be alone right now and living with Haymitch is… pretty much that.

#09 - Drink

The screams break Johanna away from her reverie – it must be Katniss, she knows her voice by now after weeks of their hospital rooms being next to each other; she tries to get up, to go help her, but the nurses hold her down, pouring a new tranquilizer cocktail down her throat.

#10 - Duty

Haymitch tells them about the other Victors he’d known, and, more quietly, the stories his parents told him about the world his grandparents had lived in before Panem existed – when he’s gone they’ll be the only ones left.

#11 - Earth

The soil in 12 is soft, easy to dig – the ground in 7 was hard, threaded through with coiled roots; however, it had never been a graveyard too.

#12 - End

“Then fucking learn to live without it, Mason,” Haymitch growls when she complains about being out of morphling, “before you can’t.”

#13 - Fall

They go to District 7 in autumn, faces hidden behind thick woolen scarves and fur-lined hoods – Johanna comes alive under the falling leaves: golden, red and orange burning behind her eyelids when she presses her lips against Katniss’ for the first time ever.

#14 - Fire

Katniss looks into the roaring fireplace; if she squints her eyes just so she can still make Prim’s form out, the slope of her chin and untucked blouse, if she got just a little bit closer maybe she could – Johanna’s voice from the kitchen brings her back to reality.

#15 - Flexible

Jo takes to calling her Kat – why hadn’t anyone told this girl how incredibly graceful she is?

#16 - Flying

Katniss looks down where Johanna’s dark head is nestled between her thighs – she hadn’t known girls could do _this_ , that it’d feel so _good_ – and forgets about everything outside the bedroom.

#17 - Food

Haymitch takes up cooking – now that he’s not drunk all the time he’s become pricklier about seeing how his food is prepared, something buried deep inside him since his Games like an axe to the gut – and, after setting many pots on fire, manages to produce a decent stew.

#18 - Foot

Kat doesn’t stay a full day at home up until she falls and almost breaks an ankle while helping to clear debris; Johanna goes in her stead the next day – it’s time for her to get her head out of her ass and do something for these people.

#19 - Grave

Nobody knows exactly how many died, when, how, so they write the names of those missing in a list and send it to the Capitol – they get a white carved marble slab in return; but they take great joy in chipping names away whenever someone turns up at the train station.

#20 - Green

The Hob and those who didn’t make it out in time are still there, underneath the pretty flowers and wet grass.

#21 - Head

People look up to her as some sort of local saint; once, a couple gives her their baby to hold – maybe in another life she will be able to cradle this fragile, small creature’s skull without remarking its similarity to a snared rabbit’s.

#22 - Hollow

The three of them are given each a medal for their service during the war; they play skip in the lake and Haymitch’s lands the furthest – he’s been carrying this rage for far longer than Katniss and Johanna.

#23 - Honor

An anonymous author publishes a paper detailing all of Alma Coin’s projects during the war – specially about the death of a certain group of Capitol children and one Primrose Everdeen – Johanna would think it had been Katniss, but she is quickly disavowed of that notion when she sees Kat’s face.

#24 - Hope

Sometimes, and only sometimes, Katniss drinks too much of Haymitch’s Capitol booze and allows herself to think of the day when the night terrors and the flinching and the blood in her hands are all gone.

#25 - Light

Kaniss had always thought having sex a conjugal duty and fucking a nightmarish, lurid neon _thing_ reserved to the Capitol, but making love to Jo – she can’t bring herself to call it _fucking_ and she doesn’t know whether they can marry – is like swallowing the whole sky, impossibly blue and bright.

#26 - Lost

Katniss has two photos in her bedroom: a blurry portrait of Prim taken mid-turn, fair hair flying and smile bright; and a still from that TV program about her family – Peeta and her locking hands, her other hand pointed at Gale, who stands slightly to the side.

#27 - Metal

No matter how much time passes, there will never be anything as comforting as the weight of a throw-axe’s handle in her hand, the way it sinks into its target – the thump always in time with her heartbeat.

#28 - New

Haymitch moves in with them eventually – he’ll take a room on the wing across from their room, mind you, he doesn’t want to hear the bedpost thumping more than necessary.

#29 - Old

Sometimes Johanna murmurs in her sleep, but she does it softly and in a language Katniss doesn’t understand, as if not to disturb her.

#30 - Peace

Katniss stretches her legs, knees bumping against Johanna’s ankles, ear pressed against the stubbornly steady beat of her heart; the forest’s trees and the lake the only thing visible around them and isn’t it thrilling, the unexpected contentment of being safe and home?

#31 - Poison

Sometimes, even if she despises herself because of it, Johanna is terribly, red-hot _jealous_ of newborn children, the kids who’ll know what the Games were because of school lessons and will never stand in line for the Reaping.

#32 - Pretty

The problem, Katniss thinks, is that Johanna is unfairly pretty; creamy skin and carved, knife-sharp features completely different to her darker Seam colouring and big nose – that must be the reason why Katniss can’t stop looking at her.

#33 - Rain

Johanna observes the storm from the inside of the house; as long as it doesn’t touch her she’ll be fine – _small steps are still steps_ , Kat had said, brow less furrowed than usual.

#34 - Regret

Johanna still asks her whether she regrets coming back to 12 – _with her_ , she really means – and Katniss actually rolls her eyes before kissing her.

#35 - Roses

The Capitol used to sent huge bouquets of flowers to the Victor’s Village for no reason at all and a thing so trivial as a war hadn’t stopped them; the two of them gather all of the blossoms they can find, douse them on Haymitch’s booze and set them on fire – the old man shouts at them, but he is smiling as he does and for a moment everything is good.

#36 - Secret

Johanna could tell stories not unlike Finnick’s and she can’t escape that – but Katniss will never have to go through that, not while Johanna lives.

#37 - Snakes

It’s not difficult at all to recognize Victors – their hands are always ready to strike, their teeth too sharp, their eyes too old and their blood cold as hell.

#38 - Snow

With the first snowfall Johanna discovers solid water is completely different to liquid water in terms of sensation; she convinces Katniss to stay outside until they are completely soaked through and shivering.

#39 - Solid

After some weeks of eating decently Katniss’ ribs don’t show unless she stretches to the sides and her arms aren’t just bone and a little muscle anymore; Johanna’s hips become more rounded – not that she’s been examining them or anything – and even Greasy Sae’s cheeks begin to fill out.

#40 - Spring

Johanna braids a dandelion crown when the first flowers grow – the colour will look beautiful against Katniss’ hair – but Katniss begins to cry when she sees them.

#41 - Stable

After months of trembling and sobbing and munching on tree bark or throwing axes at fancy furniture for hours on end, Johanna wakes up from a power nap and realizes that, while she could still pump her veins full of morphling without batting an eye, it’s not something she _needs_.

#42 - Strange

Someday their names will appear in the history books as chapters on their own right and not simple footnotes to be included in a list of dead Victors - should that bring them joy, or rage?

#43 - Summer

The heat in District 12 is an inescapable, relentless thing that makes them all sweat and flush and that is what it takes for Johanna to finally dip her feet into the lake in the woods – Katniss is there, her hand a welcome anchor to reality.

#44 - Taboo

There are names Johanna knows not to say out loud unless Katniss brings them up – Gale, Peeta, the one she doesn’t dare mention even in her thoughts – and even then she takes care to use impersonals: “pretty boy”, “bread boy”, “your sister”; she doesn’t have any names of her own, she _really_ doesn’t.

#45 - Ugly

The first times Jo showers – Haymitch had told her she was so filthy _he_ was disgusted – Katniss catches glimpses of Johanna’s scars in passing; white asterisk marks of raised skin where they’d hooked her up she pretended not to see, the same courtesy Johanna grants her when ignoring the stripes of new, pink and red and white skin the fire had replaced Prim with.

#46 - War

Katniss can’t help but think this peace is the world taking a breath before chaos returns – Johanna doesn’t give a fuck as long as it doesn’t touch them.

#47 - Water

It’s a long, long process, but Johanna learns to manage the sensation of water provided that she doesn’t fully submerge, there are no metal instruments near and Katniss is with her.

#48 - Welcome

The train station remains the same when they arrive at District 12 – the marching band and the mayor are both long gone since last time she put a foot here so Haymitch doubles as their welcome committee; he’s even put a clean shirt on, sweetheart.

#49 - Winter

When the cold comes Johanna burrows under as many blankets as she can, going as far as to sneak into Haymitch’s house and steal the ones he keeps untouched in dusty closets; Katniss finds it hilarious – eventually, they find ways to keep Jo warm and leave Haymitch alone.

#50 - Wood

Two years after the first time they kiss, Johanna’s weekly medallion is accompanied with a note; when Katniss enters the living room Jo and Haymitch are waiting for her, loaf of bread already prepared to be toasted – there’s a lot of crying and kissing, and the bread’s the best damn thing she’s ever eaten.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for staying until the end! Constructive feedback would and will be appreciated.
> 
> Happy New Year!


End file.
